The former Prime Minister gives a funny and fascinating speech, in which he
attacks eurosceptics and energy firms and warns the Tories not to move Right

When John Major was Prime Minister, satirists depicted him as grey and dull. If only they could have seen him this afternoon. He was spiky, frank and very funny. Oh, yes. (Sole disappointment: he didn’t say “Oh, yes”.)

Sir John, as he is now, was in Parliament as the guest at a press lunch. Rising to speak, he spotted a dear old foe: Nick Brown, Labour’s former chief whip. “It’s very good to see you here, Nick!” he beamed icily. “I thought you were dead.”

That set the tone. Later on, a journalist asked him whether he regretted the time he was overheard describing his eurosceptic ministers as “bastards”. Sir John donned a mask of contrition. “It was absolutely unforgivable,” he said. Deft pause. “My only excuse is that it was true.”

Politicians are so much more honest once they’re out of office. As Sir John himself put it: “I can say what I think now.” He mocked today’s eurosceptics (“The threat of a federal Europe is as dead as Jacob Marley”). But it was “not productive” to call Ukip supporters mad, as David Cameron had done; they were merely wrong, and leaving the EU would be a disaster for both Britain and the continent.

He said the Government wasn’t doing enough to help what he called “the silent have-nots… the dignified poor, or near-poor”. Not enough houses were being built (“There’s no point in telling people to get on their bike if there’s nowhere to live when they get there”). The Tories mustn’t “navel-gaze” or “pander to our comfort zone”: “All the core vote delivers is the wooden spoon.” And he feared that reforming welfare might be beyond Iain Duncan Smith, “unless he’s very lucky, which he may not be, or a genius, which last time I looked was unproven”.

A journalist asked him about this “less than ringing endorsement”. Sir John, adopting a look of injured innocence: “Actually, that was an attempt to give a ringing endorsement…”

But his most forthright views were reserved for the energy firms. Rises of nine or 10 per cent were unacceptable, he snapped, and if these firms needed to invest for the future then they could damn well borrow, rather than burden customers whose wages were frozen. He demanded that the Government intervene, and place an “excess profits tax” on energy firms before a hard winter caused the old and the poor to suffer.

Perhaps all this makes it sound as if Sir John is growing Left-wing in his old age – or, to put it another way, going from grey to red. Good news for Ed Miliband? Not quite. “When David Miliband made his suggestions about energy some weeks ago…” he began. “Oh dear, what a bad mistake to make… Well, whichever Miliband it is. I think the latest incarnation is Ed…” The Labour leader’s heart was “in the right place”, Sir John conceded with damning gentleness, but “his head has gone walkabout”.

In short: he was terrific value. What on earth has Norma been putting in his peas?